“I was in London last year,” he reveals, “and someone put me on the London version of Tinder. And though it has made social life easy, it’s quite… what’s the word?… it’s quite mean.” The very idea of “swiping left and right and rejecting people” mortifies Kapoor, who, perhaps as a performer, is less inclined towards a concept that thrives on constant—and frivolous—judgement of others. “You’re in my good books,” he says, finger going right on a make-believe phone before flipping the other way, “you’re in my bad books. Bad book, bad book, bad book. It’s weird. And the world is going crazy.”

I’m sitting with Kapoor in his grandfather’s villa in Chembur, yards away from his family’s legacy, RK Studio. The atmosphere is overwhelmingly baroque, everything gleaming, ornate and, frequently, mirrored. In a sitting room that feels ready for high tea with a visiting princess, we sit in jeans, gulp our Nespressos and shoot the breeze about everything from Sanjay Dutt to Mr Robot. Tinder, naturally, comes up because Kapoor is—as the country is aware—single these days, but the 33-year-old seems more curious about Pokémon Go, which “makes people move,” though he fears it may be a fad.

Kapoor is currently living with his grandmother Krishna, spending precious time with the 87-year-old, and his dogs—Guido and Leo, an English mastiff and a French mastiff—making the most of what he calls a lull. Over the last three years, his films, Bombay Velvet, Tamasha and Besharam, haven’t delivered the unanimous acclaim he may have gotten used to, and now he’s training for Ayan Mukerji’s Dragon while he finishes up Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and Anurag Basu’s long-gestating Jagga Jasoos, a musical comedy the actor is breathlessly thrilled to share with the world. In February, after Dragon, he hopes to start shooting for Rajkumar Hirani’s next, a biopic of Sanjay Dutt.

Wide-eyed, Kapoor gushes about Dragon potentially creating a Star Wars-like franchise. Will he be our Han Solo, then? “I’d like to believe I’m still boyish enough to be Luke Skywalker,” he corrects, smiling. “Although I feel I don’t deserve [Dragon and the Dutt biopic]. I’m sure the filmmakers feel that also, but I think there is some magical force that is working for me. Because I genuinely feel that looking at my filmography—all the good work, all the bad work—these are far beyond my capacity as an actor.”

I rate Kapoor as a remarkable performer, one of our most gifted leading men. He is, I assure, being too modest. “No, I’m being honest. Ayan and I have spoken about it: is the shine fading, do I still have that child in me, have I lost my faces?” Kapoor, labelled spectacular from the start, wonders if he is as interesting, and frequently introspects. “You know, the industry forces you to,” he laughs. “I think the circus made around celebrating an actor or criticising his failures is a bit too much, and that kind of gets to you, but you cannot get bitter. You have to understand that it’s all a part of showbiz. I’ve seen it all too much in my family.”

Kapoor is concerned about the directors who cherish him eventually tiring of his bag of tricks, and it is clearly important to the actor that this bag keeps expanding. So let me tell you one thing he does do. He listens to movie scores as he works, singling out a theme from Alan Silvestri’s score for Forrest Gump as a track he plays on loop in order to mentally prepare for an emotional scene. I’m listening to it as I type right now—great movie scores are an invaluable writing tool as well—and it’s interesting to imagine Kapoor turning up this lovely, tinkly theme as he prepares to emote the hell out of a scene. An emotional equivalent of playing the Rocky theme at the gym.

Indie director Vasan Bala once told me that for writers of our generation, it may be wisest to script ‘Ranbir Kapoor, aged 48, walks into a room,’ simply because that’s when Kapoor is likely to have dates. Kapoor’s face falls when I tell him this, and he insists he’s dying to work with younger, edgier talent, storytellers of the future. He applauds risky roles, like Alia Bhatt in Udta Punjab and Fawad Khan in Kapoor & Sons. I ask if, like Khan, he’d play a homosexual. “Sure, but now it’s already been done. Now he’s opened the door and it’s easy for us to walk through it. But earlier… I must honestly say I might have turned it down.” Would Ranbir, I wonder, play the second lead in a movie? He chews on it for a minute, then his eyes light up. “Suppose tomorrow Rajkumar Hirani offers me the part of Circuit to the new Munnabhai. I would play it and try my best to do it justice.”

“I’M EASY”Soft-spoken and thoughtful, Kapoor speaks candidly, with no apparent guard in place. “I think I could have an alcohol problem,” he says, referring to his current shoot-less days. “It is a visual medium and I have to look after myself. I have seen it in my family, I have seen it go the wrong way, so I’m aware I have a drinking problem. When I shoot, when I work, I don’t drink. But when I’m not shooting…” (For the record, the beverage of choice is a cold draught beer, though he’d “drink anything.”)

He speaks of his ex-girlfriend warmly and without hesitation. He first mentions her when affectionately describing the loony Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani—“It had simple storytelling, it had heart, and I also fell in love during that film, with Katrina”—and later says the problem with having relationships written about is how often, and how conveniently, things are misconstrued. “Katrina, after my parents, has been the most inspiring and motivating factor in my life. Period. That is too dear to me and there is no explanation, there is nothing I can tell you about it. Nobody will understand it. And I don’t want to sell it.”

Now for something you wouldn’t guess. Ranbir Kapoor, in his own words, is “a Sneaker Freaker.” I’m not aware the term exists, but he’s fanboyishly clued into the new kicks on the block, gleefully explaining how he always tries to buy two pairs—“one to rock, one to stock”—and how people with 200-plus pairs keep track. “You have your Monday-Friday rotations, plus I calculate,” he elaborates, rather meticulous for a guy proud of not owning formal trousers. “I have a suit here and there, but my dressing is quite lazy, and kinda symbolises my personality. I am how I dress.” A slacker? He grins. “I think I’ve graduated from that. I would probably say I’m… easy.”

Besides sneakers and a New York Yankees baseball cap, his big security blanket is food. Ranbir Kapoor is currently dieting for Dragon. “This house is famous for my grandmother’s food,” he sighs. “She doesn’t believe in the concept of a roti without ghee. The first week I came here, it was all paaya, junglee mutton… crazy stuff being made every day. Then my mother had to come and say, ‘Listen, he is an actor. Let him get his own cook and have his own food.’” An adventurous eater, he rates crocodile meat as the softest, nicest meat he’s tasted—“like an interesting mix of fish and chicken”—and, according to Karan Johar, Kapoor is the only actor who is completely at ease going for a meal by himself. “It’s like no other movie star, ever,” stresses Johar. “On his days off in London, he’d happily go off to eat a meal in a restaurant alone. He’s that secure, that comfortable in his own company.”

As we talk, Kapoor calls for shammi kebabs for me (he isn’t allowed to eat them) and wolves down a few before I can take a bite. This man shouldn’t doubt his hunger.

THE NEXT CHAPTERThere is nothing like hearing Kapoor talk about football. This is a man in fanatical, devoted love. He plays it thrice a week (“I’m decently okay”), owns the Mumbai City Football Club team of the Indian Super League, and jets off to Barcelona five to six times a year to take in a game and watch the legendary Lionel Messi. “I am an honorary member, so they give me free games and I meet the players and hang out with them,” he chirps ecstatically, before talking about his greatest dream, that the kids in his Mumbai City team become global superstars.

But like someone who’d obsessively take a broken wristwatch apart, Kapoor’s analysis of failure comes from an intelligent, levelheaded place. He breaks down Bombay Velvet brilliantly: “The script was a ’70s Vijay Anand kind of story, with those certain plot points. But while making the film it became so much about technique, set design, production, costume. And then [Anurag Kashyap] started improvising with all the great actors. And once you’re moving away from the Bible, then you’re going into an unknown zone, you know? Then only God can help you. Then you are not God.”

‘Being God,’ so to speak, or directing a film, is something Kapoor has long expressed interest in. “Look, I know how a film is made, but a director has to find the method to tell the story he has to tell. I’m not, because a) I’m lazy and b) acting is taking up my time and I don’t have a story, I can’t write.” Johar believes this is a good thing. “Ranbir understands the form and really looks at cinema holistically. I think actors who direct can fall prey to self-obsession. I’m sure Ranbir should direct at some point in his life, but I must greedily say it should wait: he has so much acting to give.”

Kapoor doesn’t read fiction: “All the scripts I read are fiction, so I prefer to read autobiographies.” He speaks of a few he’s recently loved, about Rockefeller impersonator Christian Gerhartsreiter, Charles Chaplin and Errol Flynn, and I realise something. In the way he speaks about his own life and process and filmography—clearly and passionately, with clarity and grace—I find myself hoping, one distant day, to read what Ranbir Kapoor has to say about himself. And as autobiographies go, the next chapter should be a ripper.

What do you have to do to get Ranbir Kapoor’s attention at a party? Watch the video to find out: